I've got to say that in my opinion, your thinking is completely backwards on this. You make it seem that music, and all other art-forms are these great institutions that the common man should not be meddling with. That's just terribly wrong.<br><br>All of these things started with the general population communicating with each other and grew over centuries, and in some cases millennia, to the polished products we have today. To say that somebody who has no formal training shouldn't be given access to any tools of creativity is really a scary thing to me.<br><br>Where do you think these songs are going to be popping up and assaulting your ears? Not on the radio or any other commercial outlet. They'll be on peoples personal web sites, home movies, and the like. Just as all of the personal photographs and other amateur artworks are. Today's version of taped to the refrigerator.<br><br>University party posters did not take a hit in quality when CorelDraw hit the masses. Do you think they used to hire professional graphic artists to make them previously? I'm pretty sure it was mainly a marker and a photocopier, and if anything, the fliers got better when DTP was a reality.<br><br>

nutty = First thing you must learn is that talent is something you are born with.<br><br>Don't piss on people who know what they are talking about.<br><br>GarbageBand will do just that. It will allow for more garbage bands.<br><br>It will not increase the level of existing talent.<br><br>Sure it will give those who are already musicians more scope to actually get their work out there.<br><br>But it will not even make musicians into talented musicians.<br><br>After fifty years of practicing being a musician every day, I have become more proficient but I don't get any more talent.<br><br>The only thing GarageBand will do to talent is that from now on, those with latent talent possibly have a greater chance of actually using that talent. <br><br>"Today is a gift, that's why its called the present."

People are born without awareness of math, language, music, etc. Talent may come from inspiration, upbringing, or whatever.<br><br>I contend that nobody knows where talent comes from.<br><br>Regardless, tools like Garageband will tap the undiscovered talent of many people that may have sat dormant as long as they live. When you put professional tools in the hands of everyone, great things happen. You'll never have to hear about the bad stuff unless you go looking for it.<br><br>

I think genius is something you can't create, but the artists (or scientists or lawyers or whatevers) who are geniuses are very few and far between. Talent I think is in the same ballpark as genius--a difference of degree and not of kind. Skill, I think, is in a different ballpark entirely--a matter of learning and practicing. But the difference in degree between genius and talent is large enough so that people who have skill in an art and who hone that skill can approximate the talented. For the run of the mill stuff that we encounter more often than not, we probably couldn't tell the difference between skill and talent.<br><br>At the same time, talented folks who don't hone their skills will never create anything worthwhile (that's what I keep telling my trumpet-blowing son, who has lots of talent but is lazy as can be when it comes to practicing ). I think the same is true for people of genius, by the way--unless they hone their skills, they will produce nothing worthwhile. One of the great poets of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats, calls his art "this craft of verse," by which I think he means that he thinks of his art as something requiring the practiced skill of any craft. That he has that rare genius makes his skill produce astonishingly great work. In comparison to such work, what the "merely" talented person produces just does not compare.<br><br>Lots of poets have worked through the categories of genius, talent, and skill. If you're curious, Robert Browning's "Andrea del Sarto" is a particularly poignant one. The poem is a dramatic monologue, as are so many of Browning's works, by one of the very good, talented craftsmen who were the backbone of the Italian Renaissance. In the poem, del Sarto thinks about the difference between the work he does and the work of Michelangelo and Rafael. Here's a passage from the poem, as del Sarto looks at a copy of a painting by Rafael (the "Urbinate," as he's called in the poem) and describes it to his lover, Lucrezia:<br><br>[color:blue]Yonder’s a work now, of that famous youth<br>The Urbinate who died five years ago.<br>(’Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)<br>Well, I can fancy how he did it all,<br>Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,<br>Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,<br>Above and through his art—for it gives way;<br>That arm is wrongly put—and there again—<br>A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,<br>Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,<br>He means right—that, a child may understand.<br>Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:<br>But all the play, the insight and the stretch—<br>Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?<br>Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,<br>We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!</font color=blue><br><br>Poor Andrea--his skill will never make him a genius. But at the same time that he sees and acknowledges Rafael's genius, he notes Rafael's need to practice. I guess del Sarto might have said, "Too bad Raphael didn't have the equivalent of GarageBand to help his genius flourish." <br><br> [img]/images/wwwthreads/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [img]/images/wwwthreads/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>People are born without awareness of math, language, music, etc. Talent may come from inspiration, upbringing, or whatever.<br><br>I contend that nobody knows where talent comes from<p><hr></blockquote><p><br>Thank you! Someone who sees the world how I see it. We really don't know where talent comes from. A lot of people seem like they have an innate ability to do something, but then you see that they were nurtured in an environment where that ability is emphasised. Would they still have this ability if they were brought up in a different envronment? Passion also plays a big part in this too. Some people are so passionate about music that they play 6 hours a day. Is this talent?<br><br>The problem is, we don't know *where* talent comes from and where the line is drawn between talent and skill. We just know that the people who are the best at something are passionate about it and work very hard at it.<br><br>-Matt<br><br>

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